Courage

I've been thinking about courage recently. Courage to face each day, courage to try again when I've failed, courage to move past my stuff. Since my closed adoption brought such shame to my family, I didn't talk about it for many years. I just stuffed it inside, went to some counseling, and journaled. But it was a pretty private thing which made it an even bigger and bigger deal. It's so funny how something left in the dark grows bigger and uglier with time.

But after I got married I somehow started to find the courage to 'go public.' I remember telling a friend my plan to tell our Sunday School class about my experience, partly in rebellion to my parents who would have preferred I stay quiet.

Yes, it took courage to say my story out loud to a roomful of people for the first time. But more than that, it was scary going back to that same roomful of people Sunday after Sunday. I found that speaking my story out loud and walking away was no big deal. But it was much harder to tell friends and people I cared about. What if they rejected me? What if they laughed? or misunderstood?

Being transparent with people I truly care about has been the biggest test of my courage. What tests yours?

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